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Riders Get First WBL Win

For a second time in less than a week, Jacob Grannan was on fire and the St. Marys Roughriders boys’ basketball team benefited.

The senior racked up a game-high 24 points, assisted by Derek Jay’s 21-point output and the Roughriders played their best all-around game of the season on Friday, claiming their first Western Buckeye League victory in a 63-54 win at Kenton.

The Roughriders (4-6, 1-2 WBL) did most of the damage in the second quarter.

Never trailing in the game, the Riders saw their five-point first-quarter lead vanish down to one, 20-19 with 6:21 remaining in the first half when Grannan took over.

Grannan scored 10 of his 24 points in the second quarter and accounted for all but nine points for the Roughriders, who ended the half on a 16-10 run for a 36-29 halftime lead.

The Wildcats never threatened from there as they shot 3-of-11 from the field in the third quarter — all three-pointers — to allow the Roughriders to extend their lead to nine, 48-39 heading into the fourth.

The Roughriders did not lead by more than 11 points, when they were up 44-33 with 3:42 remaining in the third quarter. Kenton’s six three-pointers kept the Wildcats in striking range, but not enough to take the game over.

St. Marys had one of its best offensive outputs of the season shooting 40 percent from the field, turning the ball over seven times and were 14-of-17 from the free throw line — a contrast to the Riders’ 6-of-12 clip in Tuesday’s loss to Fort Recovery.

In the meantime, Grannan is hot.

The senior has scored 61 points in the Roughriders’ last three games, averaging 20.3 points per game. In his first six contests of the season, he was averaging just 9.83 ppg.